


Stockholm In Subversion

by tielan



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Early HYDRA Reveal, Alternate Universe - Prisoners and Test Subjects, Dark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4916014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he tries to escape she shuts him down with a gun held to the head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toucanpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toucanpie/gifts).



> So, one of the options for my assignment in the MCU AUfest was 'Canon AU – Prisoner(s)/Test Subject(s) of SHIELD', and I had a plotbunny for it, but it didn't actually get completed in time for the AU fest 2015. (I did manage to finish it before the MCU AU Fest 2016, however!)

The first time he tries to escape she shuts him down with a gun held to the head.

It’s not his head.

–

Blue eyes drill into him, ice-cold, like the soul beneath the exterior. Peggy covered her steel with velvet; this woman doesn’t even try.

“You’ve been frozen 70 years, soldier. Welcome to the 21st Century.”

Her name is Hill and she commands this facility. _First name ‘Agent’_ quips Stark, a haggard shadow of his father’s energy and drive. _You should have gotten out while you could, Spangles._

Steve doesn’t need to ask why the other man hasn’t; it’s for the same reason Steve couldn’t let the shivering girl take the bullet in exchange for his freedom.

–

The alarms shrill through the air – harsh as a raid siren. Steve is halfway to his feet before the shackles buzz pain through his forearms.

She never moves from her seat, only frowns slightly as bootsteps clatter in the corridor outside and the door opens. “Agent Hill, we’ve a situation - Potts is losing it.” A brief pause. “Evacuate?”

“No.” She says it with a slight shake of her head. “Show her what she’ll do if she loses control – send Stark in.”

Steve is still panting from the jolt of the shackles – it felt like his skin was burning off, one layer at a time, digging through skin and muscle, all the way down to the bone. But he plants his hands on the table and glares at her.

“Bitch.”

The messenger stops on his way out the door, mouth open, eyes wide. A mere kid – maybe twenty? They look so _young_ these days.

By comparison, her eyes glint with hard blue amusement. “And don’t you forget it.”

–

He watches her. The other agents have their orders, their cruelties. She orchestrates it all with a will of iron and a general’s vision. Exactly what that vision portends for Steve, he doesn’t want to consider. Right now, it’s mostly needles, but all they need is one success—

–

Tony Stark is a mere shadow of his father: intelligence and intensity with a fraction of the charm and brilliance Howard possessed.

Sometimes seeing how far the apple fell from the tree _hurts_. All the more because Steve can see the glints of similarity between father and son and wonders what happened to darken Stark’s mirror.

Maybe it was something like whatever happened to Pepper Potts.

She stumbles one day, coming past Steve, and he reaches out a hand to steady her. Her skin sears his – literally burns him – the flesh under her skin glowing red-hot before she yanks herself away and damps down the reaction. “Don’t!”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Blue eyes stare at him, apparently startled at the apology before she manages, “Me, too. You should—You should have that seen to.”

Dr. Banner is brisk and clinical as he studies Steve’s hand. “You’re already healing. I’ll smear the burn gel on it, but given your usual rate of healing it should be scabbed over by tonight, and healed within two days.”

There’s a knock on the door, and a sleek redhead enters without waiting for an answer. “Excuse me, Captain. Doctor, it’s nearly time for the other guy’s exercise session.”

“I know. We’ll be there on time today, I promise.”

Steve wonders about the plural but doesn’t ask. Half an hour later, though, he feels the faint tremors of something like an earthquake, shaking the ground. But when he inquires of the guards on his room, they tell him it’s usual and nothing to worry about.

The last ‘resident’ of the facility is a young woman who he meets one afternoon, working the punching bag with an intent expression. When she sees him, her eyes widen. “Hey. Captain America.”

“Steve Rogers,” he tells her. “But please, just call me Steve.”

She eyes him for a moment, then shrugs and holds out one wrapped hand for shaking. Her forearms are covered from wrist to elbow in technological gauntlets.

“Skye,” she says, and her grip is firm, even to him. “Just Skye.”

–

The ‘exercise yard’ is an old quarry, nearly a hundred yards deep. There must have been a road out at one point, but it looks like it was dug out and the stone removed to leave nothing but a pit. And the walls and floor are cracked and cratered – as though something big and vicious slammed itself against the sides of the yard in an attempt to escape.

He jogs round and round and round, and climbs up and up and up because it’s the only exercise he gets. It’s a metaphor for his life – the endless uselessness of it, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. He was a soldier made for war and he doesn’t have a fight to join.

Now, he’s a lab rat, running an endless maze.

Sometimes she comes and watches him exercise; usually alone, occasionally with someone else. He sprints past her shadow on the quarry floor, once, ten times, fifty, one hundred…

–

“He’s certainly pretty enough.” The man Agent Hill addressed as Commander Garrett speaks from behind the one-way glass without realising that he can be heard inside the room. As far as Steve can tell, none of the agents monitoring them are aware that he can hear them and he takes good care not to betray that he can.

Although today stretches his ability to act indifferent to the limit.

“You oughta get a good ride outta him, Hill. A nice girl like you out here needs a bit of fun every now and then. Might as well make this exile worth your while.”

Steve’s skin crawls, but he stares blankly ahead as Hill replies, “I think I’ll pass. I like my neck intact.”

“It’s a nice neck. And speaking of getting a ride out of the good Captain, did you hear about Carter? Diagnosed with dementia. I always knew the bitch was barking. Hey, didn’t she recommend you to SHIELD back in the day?”

“We can’t all have such illustrious sponsors as Alexander Pierce, commander.”

“Well, I did get lucky. Made good on it, too. Pity you’re stuck here minding the freak show, Hill. Clever girl like you could go far if she was a bit more…willing to do what was needed.”

The inflection of his words needs no interpretation.

Steve has met people for whom the word ‘asshole’ is a descriptor. In the case of John Garrett, he’s willing to concede that the word ‘asshole’ might very well be a definition.

Then it hits him.

–

He doesn’t know if they’re watching his research on the systems, but he figures it can’t hurt to look.

Peggy Carter, former Director of SHIELD, now living in a managed care institution upstate. Married, with two children – he feels a pang at the notation, but pushes it away and keeps scrolling through. There’s nothing much; she retired two dozen years ago, to much accolades, but her file continues after the official retirement date – presumably off-the-book missions, or work she did that wasn’t ‘authorised’ until after it was done.

One of the last notations in her file – the one right before her entry into the Sadie Grace Hospice – says, ‘ _brought the Madripoor situation to light, employing external resource_ ’.

When he looks up the Madripoor situation, though, he encounters a block: _Insufficient security clearance_. When he does an internet news search about the city around the date listed, however, he finds...quite a bit more than he expected.

–

“Captain Rogers.”

“Agent Hill.” He looks her in the eye. “Tell me about Madripoor.”

She stops. Stares at him. And then sits back in her chair. She doesn’t smile, but something about her expression seems...intrigued. “Madripoor is a city in South-East Asia which is more or less run by the Hoan family – they specialise in banking, finances, stocks, shares, and bonds throughout Asia and have some of the best long-term economic thinkers on the planet. They have a small private army, more angled at security than a military capable of conquering and holding territory. Which works for them, since in addition to the up-front financial trading, there’s money laundering, graft, and corruption aplenty.”

All technically true, Steve has no doubt. But not what he wants to know. “You want to play this game, Agent Hill? Tell me about Madripoor in November 2003, when you were in the city – along with Peggy Carter.”

This time, she does smile. “You’ve been doing your homework, Captain.”

“Know yourself; know your enemy,” he quotes.

“A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” Agent Hill finishes the quotation. “But you already know this enemy, Captain.”

–

He’s not so sure about that.

She’s his jailer; the warden of this prison. But some of the conversations make no sense in that context.

–

“Stark’s getting restless again.”

“Will giving him time with Pepper help?”

“It might. What about her?”

“We’re not dead or exploded yet. I’ll take that as a good sign.”

The two women don’t say anything for a moment. Then the stranger asks, “Nothing from Phil?”

“No. We wait.”

–

“Garrett’s coming for another visit. With Ward.”

“Shit. Thought we’d have more time.” The man sighs. “I’ll do what I can, but she’s fragile.”

“I know. I’ll buy what time we can give her.”

“Appreciated.” There’s a pause during which Steve can feel the eyes upon him. “That’s him, then?”

“In the flesh, out of Grampa’s stories.”

A quick bark of bitter laughter. “I tell you, Hill, Gramps never mentioned anything like this.”

–

“No signal?”

“No.”

It takes Steve a moment to place the husky voice – the redhead who came into Banner’s office to remind him about someone else’s exercise routine. “Have you considered what’ll happen if it never comes?”

“It’ll come. It’s Coulson. The lullabye?”

“It’s working.” But there’s a caginess under the answer. Steve hears it – and so does Agent Hill. The silence suggests she’s giving the redhead a look. The answer a moment later confirms it. “One-on-one handling is...different.”

“I wouldn’t have assigned you if I didn’t think you could take it.”

“And you? Are you able to take it?”

“Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?”

“Contrary to popular belief, Maria, I don’t know everything.”

–

“Hard night?”

“And a worse morning. She’s losing it – and so are we. We can’t hold out much longer.”

“We just need to hold on long enough.”

“You’re supposed to be the cynic, Hill.”

“And you’re supposed to be the one who can see further than most, Barton.”

A grunt. “What I see is that you’re hanging your hide out to dry.”

“Leave that to me; you worry about Potts.”

“What about him?”

The moments stretch out to her answer, and Steve thinks he’s missed it. Then she sighs. “I’ll let you know.”


	2. Chapter 2

When the door opens on the ‘interrogation’ room, it’s not Hill who walks in.

“Captain Rogers,” John Garrett turns the chair around and straddles it. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

A pleasure which, Steve notes, doesn’t include offering his hand to shake. “Commander Garrett, I take it?”

“My reputation precedes me. This could be bad.” But he’s smiling – a chummy, easy smile that belies what Steve knows of the man. “I’m afraid Agent Hill is... otherwise occupied. Hardworking girl that she is, I guess she needed a bit of a break. I’m almost jealous.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say, and so he doesn’t respond. Not, it seems, that Commander Garrett requires a response.

“Anyway, how’s the hospitality here? Best that we’ve got for your kind – not that you’d appreciate it.”

“Hospitality’s fine,” Steve tells him, filing away the ‘your kind’ comment. “I’d prefer my freedom.”

“Yeah, see, there’s an essential problem with that. S.H.I.E.L.D doesn’t trust you – we can’t afford to. So, yeah, it’s hospitality for the moment. On the other hand, it could be worse. Let me tell you about this one time I was in Maine – you know what they say about small towns? Well, maybe not. But there was this woman—”

Over the next hour, as the tales grow increasingly more lurid and bizarre, Steve realises there’s very little that Commander Garrett actually wants from him, other than a listening ear.

–

Later that night, restless and irritated, Steve requests the use of the gym.

The shackles are an annoying but familiar buzz in his skin as he strides through the facility – then pulls up short at the doors to the gym.

She’s got a wicked right cross; and a smart left jab. The kind that a man wouldn’t see coming if he wasn’t on his guard. And Steve is taken decidedly off his guard at the sight of her – tank top tucked into her trousers, trousers tucked into her boots; shoulders bare, skin flushed. She’s not a brawler, not a heavyweight puncher – she’d float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee.

It socks him in the gut, like a fist.

The guard knocks on the door. “Agent Hill. Rogers wants to use the facilities.”

But her eyes have already rested on him, measured him, dismissed him. She nods, and pulls off the gloves. “I’m done here anyway. Captain.”

“Agent,” he manages as she walks past, well within reach of him should he wish to close his hands around her long, slender throat and choke the life out of her.

But that’s not the urge that rises in him.

He sets a gruelling pace on the jogging machine, mile after mile after mile, then batters a punching bag until his muscles are aching. But inside his head, the questions are churning, their edges cutting into him, making him question what he’s seeing, his understanding of the situation.

–

That night, sleep takes its time to envelop Steve. His mind keeps replaying fragments of conversation, things said, things done, things implied.

_Garrett’s coming for another visit with Ward. I’ll buy what time I can give her._

The welts on Hill’s throat and the bruises on her arms make it quite clear what the price of that time was.

Which makes no sense. She’s the warden of this prison, why should she care what happens to the prisoners?

Unless...

_Hardworking girl that she is, I guess she needed a bit of a break._

Although it was also Garrett’s suggestion she should ‘get a good ride’ out of Steve. Which makes his flesh crawl. Sort of.

His body stirs, a quiver of interest. Steve opens his eyes and stares into the darkness, revolted. No. He doesn’t—he can’t want _that_. Yet his imagination presents the slim, limber line of her body as she arches on him, her biceps straining under his grip as he thrusts up into her, the sharp gasp of her breath as he marks her with his mouth in intimate and public ways.

–

The next time they meet, he doesn’t mention the bruises, or ask why she subjected herself to that.

It’s none of his business, so he tells himself.

–

Skye is chatty and restless when they meet in the midmorning, her hands moving over a keyboard almost instinctively, while she tries to explain code and data packets, backdoors, and ‘security architecture layers’ to him. And her handler slouches at the next table over like a professional soldier waiting for orders in the war – how many times did Steve see the Howling Commandos sitting like that, waiting—

The soft pattering of fingers on the screen suddenly intensifies, setting a pace that’s nearly manic. Steve blinks as Skye’s attention focuses on what she’s doing, then stands when the handler grabs her shoulder and shakes her. “Skye—”

“No! I have to—I can see the way—” She ducks her shoulder out from under his touch, then tries to squirm away when the guy grabs both her shoulders, turns her to him and shakes her hard enough to rattle her, hard enough to hurt.

“Hey, girl, look at me. Skye.”

“Hey,” Steve begins, and grabs the guy’s arm. “Don’t you touch her—”

“Back off, Cap.” It’s not the tone that shocks him, nor the sudden buzzing increase in his wrist restraints, but the inflection. Authority. Familiarity. Similarity. And the man doesn’t even look at him – surely the bigger threat – all his attention is on the girl. “ _Skye!_ ”

She’s stilled, dropped her hands into her lap, scrunched her eyes shut. There’s a long, still moment before she says, “I have to shut down the program.”

“Then you do that.” The handler lifts one hand so she can reach out and press two keys on the screen. Then he takes her hand in his. “We’re gonna head back to your room now, okay?”

“Okay.” Skye takes a deep breath and looks at Steve, her smile is unconvincing. “Sorry about that, Cap. Sometimes...I get stuck. Code rush.”

He has no idea what code rush is, but he nods. “It’s fine.” He looks at the handler, but the man is ignoring him, herding Skye out. And Skye, for the most part, seems okay being herded.

As they go out the door, Steve hears her murmur, “If you’d let me—”

The handler laughs – short and tender. “Girl, I’d let you tear down the world if I didn’t think you’d probably succeed.”

–

_In the flesh, out of Grampa’s stories._

Steve looks up the handler, but can’t get beyond Agent Triplett’s basic work history with S.H.I.E.L.D – no family details, no connections.

And he’s left to manage his confusion and conflict as best he can without the information he was hoping for – although what difference it would make if the man is related to one of the Howling Commandos, Steve can’t imagine. He’s still a jailer, a warden of this prison...

Except it’s looking less and less like a prison.

Stark’s handler retorts back at him, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression faintly bored as she replies to him in a droll and snappy match of wits that reminds Steve of nothing so much as Howard and Peggy sniping comfortably at each other in the London bunker.

Ms. Potts’ handler brings her a metal canteen of water as she sits out in the sunroom watching the news. And she glances away from the TV and smiles briefly in thanks. Later, she reaches over to touch his coffee cup, and a curl of steam rises from the lip as he toasts her with a quirk of a smile.

And the sleek redhead handling Banner looks at Steve with an expression that says, clear as words, that she’ll rip his throat out if he makes a wrong move.

They’re not guards, Steve realises; they’re protectors.

–

“Why are we here?”

Hill regards him for a long moment. “I’m guessing that’s not a metaphysical question.” She puts the tablet down on the table. “We couldn’t let you just roam free. Whose side are you on? Who will you end up working for? Can we trust you?”

“You ensured that I wouldn’t work for S.H.I.E.L.D, at any rate.”

“True.” She shrugs. “You’re a dangerous individual, Captain. Both as a weapon and as a symbol.”

“But you’re not developing a leash on me.”

“Excuse me?”

He snorts at the elegantly polite disbelief. “Stark and Potts are leashes on each other – you use one to keep the other in check. And Stark’s got a...we’ll call it a rapport with Agent May. Comfortable and easy – like Agent Barton with Potts. Agent Triplett acts more like a bodyguard to Skye than a prison guard, and I’m pretty sure Agent Romanoff wouldn’t hesitate kill me if I made a threatening move on Banner.”

She listens to the litany and just smiles – a brief, fierce baring of her teeth that might be amusement or a challenge. “Maybe you’re just special, Rogers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot is creeping, just a little. But the next chapter is definitely it!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and once again, we have story creep! Should be done in another chapter, maybe two. We'll see.
> 
> Warning for sexual situations, heroes facing bad choices, and non-con/dubcon threats and angles.

The voices echo faintly through the empty washroom.

“Boss is in a mood tonight. She wants him prepped.”

“Hasn’t happened in a while.”

“Guess she takes longer to wind up than Shetland.” There’s a pause. “This isn’t going to be fun, is it?”

Steve frowns into the spray. Then sucks in his breath hard as the shackles around his wrists burn up in in electric agony, driving him to his knees.

Dimly, he’s aware of hands grabbing him, hauling him up, and he lashes out. One man falls but there are others to replace him and he can’t get them all. The buzz of the shackles increase, writhing up his arms into his shoulders, and he arches as something stings his shoulder. The world spins and twists, shuddering around him.

When he comes to, he’s stumbling along a corridor, still naked and wet from the shower, a metal collar around his throat, long bars clipped to it, and shackles around his ankles. The low-level buzz in the collar warns of the punishment should he try another rebellion, but in his veins his blood is humming.

_Overdose,_ he manages to think through the pump of his heart, through the throb of his veins. 

“God, he’s something and a half,” mutters one of the guards nearby. “Think there’ll be much left in him after she’s done?”

Steve’s head comes up sharply at the realisation, and the collar explodes into burning, shocking life. His vision flashes white before his eyes, and his muscles lock in aching agony. Then he’s being hurried back to his room, small and white and clean, but dingy and very much a prison.

The bed is turned down; sheets dragged to the foot of the bed. Even through the humming, buzzing, throbbing pain coursing through him, Steve knows what this means.

_She wants him prepped._

He tries to pull away, but the collar explodes against him again, and when it dies down again and he can form coherent thought, they’ve got him strung out, spreadeagled across the mattress.

One of the guards makes a move to touch him. Steve snarls through the white-hot pain of his collar.

“Leave off,” says another. “She won’t like it.”

“Fuck her.” But the guard smirks at Steve. “Although that’s your job, ain’t it? I’ll see you later, prettyboy.”

They twitch the sheet up over him – small and pitiful dignity – and turn off all the lights, so the only light is the faint glow of the fire alarm over the door.

He pulls at the shackles, but he doesn’t have any leeway, and all the straining and struggling gets him nowhere.

The drugs in his blood pulse, fierce and furious. They batter at his brain, making concerted thought nearly impossible through the pounding in his ears and the panting in his chest. Against his skin, the plain cotton sheets are rough as hessian sacks, and every muscle in his body aches – including  _that_ one, which feels monstrously swollen.

And beneath all that lurks the anger, coiling and uncoiling, wanting nothing more than to  _do_ something, to make it stop...

When the locks click back, he makes himself relax, forces himself not to fight as the door pushes open. Her figure is briefly silhouetted by the corridor light before she closes the door behind her and sets something in the doorjamb which flickers with yellow and white lights before she types in a code and a row of lights turn green.

There’s a whining noise, and something deep in the facility stills.

It’s a moment of ringing, perfect silence.

Then the shouts arise, noises made distant through the walls and the locked door as someone tries to open it, fails, and begins thumping on it.

His wrists and ankles and throat ache, and it takes Steve a moment to realise that whatever signal was being channelled through the shackles, it’s no longer buzzing against his nerves.

A moment later, Hill types in another code and the shackles open, falling off his wrists and ankles.

He’s free.

Steve doesn’t think. He’s up and out of the bed in one smooth lunge. His body works and his blood’s up, and he’s not hampered by anything – not anymore.

Hill sees him coming, of course and doesn’t try to evade. Breath grunts out of her as he slams her against the wall, setting his hand at her throat and feeling her swallow as her hands come up around his wrist, clawing uselessly.

Their eyes lock, and for a moment, he doesn’t know if he’s going to kiss her or kill her. Apart from the hands at his wrist, she’s not struggling...she’s waiting. For what?

A yard away, the door rattles with shouts and calls for Hill. Neither of them look away.

“What the hell is going on?” His voice sounds hoarse even to his own ears. “What are you doing? Why the—?” He swallows hard. He’s naked, his blood is running hot. Her breasts push against his chest in swift and nervous pants, but she’s not fighting him. And it’s a very long fall from hatred to desire in his head—and a very small space between their mouths. “Why the drugs? The deceit?”

“Sometimes, Captain,” she rasps, and her voice is low and intense, “all the choices we have are bad.” Her eyes search his for a moment before she lifts her chin. Steve nearly bites down on her mouth – then realises could be offering him her mouth...or her throat. “Make yours.”

He grinds his hips into hers, a careful and deliberate threat. Fear widens her eyes, stains her expression, and poisons desire. He shoves himself away, taking one step back. Yes, he wants her – or the drug in his bloodstream is making him want her – but not like that. Not even after everything she’s put him through, everything she’s done—

The facility trembles, shaking from the inside.

The tenor of the shouts outside the door changes, takes on a panicked edge. There are shots fired...then silence.

“Commander? Captain? We’re coming in.”

They come in with weapons primed, raised, and trained on him. Agent Triplett enters first, takes one look and steps out behind Steve so he’s got room to shoot. But Steve is watching the stranger. Middle-aged and balding, the man looks like he’d pass as a mild-mannered businessman, even back home – but for the flak jacket and the businesslike way he handles his weapon.

Something flares in his eyes as he looks at Steve, but his gaze goes to Hill, concerned.

“Maria?”

“He’s standing down.” The calm certainty in her voice shakes him. “Give him the shield.”

Mild Mannered coughs. “I think he’d prefer clothing to start with.”

Someone passes in a pair of pants, and Steve drags them on as Mild Mannered – name,  _Coulson_ – gives the status.

“We have fifteen minutes before _The Hand Of Zola_ is in position to shoot us down like womprats in a—”

“Zola?” Steve interrupts. “As in _Armin_ Zola?”

Coulson looks at Hill. “You didn’t tell him?”

“There wasn’t exactly time.”

“HYDRA got us in the end, Captain,” Coulson says, flatly as he looks to the door and makes a gesture at someone outside. “So we’re breaking out.”

Off to the side, Triplett is talking to Hill in tones too low to hear as he hands her a gun, but from the flick of his eyes towards Steve, the conversation isn’t about weaponry.

_Sometimes all the choices we have are bad. Make yours._

_What I see is that you’re hanging your hide out to dry._

She wasn’t expecting to survive the escape.  The realisation is bitter in Steve’s mouth, and anger and disgust curls his gut.

“Captain?”

It takes him a moment to comprehend what Coulson is holding out to him.  The scarlet, white, and blue of the paint job is faded and scraped, and he reaches for it, automatically—

For a moment he’s back, hoisting the shield for the first time—

_What do you think?_

“We’d leave you and the shield alone for a moment,” Hill cuts into his memories – another woman with a gun and a grudge – and more reason to shoot Steve than he ever gave Peggy, “but I’d like to get out of here before Zola bombs us back to the 40s.”

And that’s all it takes to get the other two moving.


	4. Chapter 4

Out in the corridor, two guards lie sprawled in a pool of scarlet.

Hill hasn’t given them a second glance, her bootheels coated in blood as she fixes something in her ear.  “How’s the plan going?”

“It mostly survived the first engagement,” is Coulson’s reply. “Although we won’t hold Stark for long.”

“Melinda’s been working with him. And Barton’s been working with Potts – he’ll stay for her sake, if nothing else.”

The facility shakes again with the vibrations Steve’s felt before – a rumble in the ground, shivering through cement and bone alike. 

Hill exchanges a look with Agent Triplett and touches the small, curved wire that starts over her ear and runs down to her jaw. “Romanoff, Barton, May; sitrep?”

Whatever they’re saying, Steve can’t hear it and her expression gives nothing away. But with the drug pumping through his veins and his shield in his hand, he’s itching for a fight – something on which to take out the frustrations of the last few months.

There are shouts and voices in the corridor up ahead, and Steve pushes to the front, unthinking.

Coulson catches his arm. “Cap—”

“Let him go,” Hill advises, her voice oddly distant in his ears.

The pulse of battle throbs in his blood and his brain, and he barely hears himself ask, “Anyone I shouldn’t hit?”

“The ones who surrender.”

He’s nearly moving before she finishes speaking, needing an enemy, needing to fight. There are six guards, the first of them just rounding the corner as he reaches the intersection. Five seconds later, they’re down, and Hill and the others have reached the intersection.

Agent Triplett promptly diverges, presumably having received orders to do something Steve didn’t hear. He gives Steve one wary glance, then goes.

_In the flesh, out of Grampa’s stories._

Steve doesn’t ask; not then. And Hill is already stepping over the bodies, heading in the other direction, her stride brisk and uncompromising, while Coulson pauses, turning to wait for Steve.

“I’m coming,” he says, although nobody’s actually told him to follow. “Where are we going?”

“Hangar.” Hill doesn’t look around. “We’ve only got a couple of Quinjets, plus whatever Phil arrived in, so it’s going to be crowded—”

“Actually,” Coulson says, “we’ve got something a little more than that. Apparently, there were plans for a mobile unit. Remember the jetliner plans on Pierce’s dash?”

Hill makes a noise that’s almost a squeak, but doesn’t break stride. “You _stole_ S.H.I.E.L.D One?”

“Appropriated.” Coulson sounds defensive, and the look he gives Steve is oddly nervous, like he’s looking for approval. “It has cloaking and all the mods.”

They encounter two other groups of soldiers. One set aren’t looking where they’re going and are a ridiculously easy target. Another get some shots off before they can take cover. Steve shoves through a side door, crowding the other two behind him while he deflects bullets with his shield.

As he pushes them back, there’s a shoulder pressed up against his spine, the slight swell of breast against his shoulderblades. Unconsciously done, but his heightened senses think of that moment in the room. Then she starts talking into her piece, and the low, crisp words squeeze something in his gut.  “This is Hill, everyone prep for exit, but I want Group 2 on S.H.I.E.L.D One. I’m taking Q2, and I don’t want passengers.”

Steve frowns, but his mind is too busy calculating angles, watching for breaks— _There._ He throws the shield, moves to catch it on the flying rebound, catches one man under the chin with the edge, and smashes the other across the face with the flat, as the man’s words from earlier echo: _T_ _hink there’ll be much left in him after she’s done?_

Revulsion and revenge tremble in him, like the moment before when he could have squeezed the life out of Hill without batting an eyelash.

“Captain.” Wherever she learned how to wield a voice in command along with her sense of timing, she learned it well. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

Steve makes himself lower the shield, step back. He makes himself follow her, carefully ignoring the frown wrinkling Coulson’s forehead.

The corridors widen, suddenly opening up into what must be the hangar, where a handful of people are boarding the giant jet that’s parked in the middle of the floor.  In the cockpit, Steve can see the dark sweep of hair that belongs to Stark’s handler, prepping the plane for flight.

“I see May’s in her element,” Hill murmurs to Coulson. “Get to your safehouse and wait for the Phase Two signal.”

“You sure you want to decoy?”

“It’ll split their attention,” she says, bluntly. “Do they want S.H.I.E.L.D One back, or do they want Captain America and the bitch who let him off the leash?”

Coulson looks like he wants to say something – a lot of things, actually. “Just make sure the pound doesn’t get you. I put too many hours into you to lose you now.”

“Why, Coulson, I didn’t know you cared.” But she strides away, already touching her earpiece. “Barton? Stark? Status report.”

“Captain.” Coulson waits a few seconds – long enough for Hill to move out of earshot – and drops his voice. “I don’t know what’s happened while you’ve been here, but I know what I saw when I walked into your room. I’ve been a fan of yours for over forty years, and I’d rather not have to change my mind now.” A pause, while grey eyes hold his. “So I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye on her.”

Steve finds himself adjusting his grip on the shield, and suddenly thinks of another mild-mannered man he once knew. _Be a good man._ Trust, he remembers, has a weight to it – a burden of responsibility. He’d almost forgotten the sensation. “I will.” His mouth is dry. “I’m sorry. About before.”

Coulson looks him in the eye. “ _I_ don’t require the apology, Captain.” He heads for ‘S.H.I.E.L.D One’, leaving Steve to follow after Hill, who’s now in an argument with Agent Triplett. Behind Triplett, Skye is flexing her fingers. She meets Steve’s gaze and grins.

“Cap.”

“Skye.” Then, because he has to ask, “You okay?”

“Better than.” Her smile could best be described as ‘feral’. Steve understands. “It’s good to be out again.”

“You knew about this.” It’s less of a question, more of a statement, trying to get his head around everything of the last few months, trying to resolve all the conflicts in him about the last hour – God, has it only been an hour?

“Not at first. And it took a while.” She glances over at Triplett and Steve’s gaze follows as the handler turns away from Hill and comes towards them.

“We’re on S.H.I.E.L.D One,” is all he says, but his eyes are narrow on Steve, even as he stretches a hand out to Skye and she slips her fingers into his, carefully navigating around the technology that circle her forearms like a pair of old-fashioned armour vambraces. “Rogers.”

Steve thinks about that one word – acknowledgement and warning both – as he follows Hill up the ramp of the Quinjet and into the cockpit. For a woman who plays it cold, she’s got a lot of people who are worried about her safety. That, or else, for a man who used to be a national hero, Steve has a lot of people who don’t trust him with Maria Hill.

Clearly, Hill herself isn’t one of them. She’s already started powering up the Quinjet and running through her own pre-flight checklist.

In the cockpit lights and the overhead, Steve can suddenly see the lividity of the bruises already forming on her throat. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry about before.”

“Uhuh.” She points at a headset on a hook and then at the assorted controls. “Firing and targeting systems. Work them out.”

Steve straps in and puts on the headset. It’s tiny compared to the ones from the war, and when he turns it on, the voices are crystal clear in his ears – no crackling, no interference. He listens as Hill confirms with the departing groups, switching channels by some means that Steve doesn’t see, and communicating with Stark who seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once.

By the time he has it worked out, the first Quinjet has slid out of the hangar and is airborne in the grim, grey sky overhead, and they’re following it, giving SHIELD One the space to fire up its engines with a growing whine, as telemetry scrolls across a heads-up display at a dizzying speed.

“This is Stark. Better hurry up and get out of there, because we’ve got company on the horizon.”

“Barton, you copy?”

“Copying. Tash and I will decoy.”

“Negative,” she says as their engines fire, and the Quinjet lifts off the ground, near-effortlessly. “You’ve got Potts and Banner to monitor, and neither have been rated on aircraft weapons. Your priority is to go to ground and tell Barney to keep the beer cold.”

Barton snorts. “He’d be doing that anyway.” There’s a pause, then, “Rogers?”

“Barton?”

“Don’t let her kill herself.”

“Priorities, Barton: evasion, distraction, and chilling the beer.”

There’s a snort over the comms. “Copy that. Barton out.”

“If everyone’s finished the flirting,” Stark says, audibly testy, “then we have one oversized _Hand of Zola_ coming up, and you definitely don’t want the fries and coke that come with it.”

Steve can’t see where Stark is, what Stark’s doing on the heads-up display. He can see the giant flying craft, and the many smaller ones in red, and a tiny dot in green that’s ahead of the pack.

Hill is speaking into the comms. “SHIELD One?”

“We’re airborne,” comes the cool, crisp tones of Stark’s handler over the channel. “Going to have to shoulder our way through.”

“No worse than a presentation at the Academy.”

“I never liked those anyway.”

The heads-up display blares, and the view out the front turns upside down as they drop into a barrel roll. Steve blinks; his stomach should be all turned over, but it’s not. And there are missiles coming at him, and _this_ is targeting and _this_ is firing and _this_ is—

“Rogers, if that’s you, get those damned targeting systems _off_ me!”

The inflection, the irritated tone, the sheer arrogance, sounds like, “Stark?”

The red-and-gold bogey in his crosshairs turns on a dime, and now that Steve’s looking properly, it seems to be a bulky little metal man in the sky, flying tiny against the much-larger aircraft and the giant shadow of the _Hand of Zola_ , lifting one arm to fire—

“Hill, call off your damn puppy!”

She arches a brow in his direction, and Steve finds himself grinning. “Arf.” But he targets the enemy aircraft beyond Stark, tracking and firing, even as Hill pilots them through the melee.

In a warzone, everything becomes chaos. Steve is familiar with the feeling of trying to process the action going on around him. The technology and the gunnery post might be new, but the fight is not. And he targets and fires with all the anger and frustration that’s been building in him since he woke up and found himself a prisoner.

It’s all the frustration that’s been building up in him, all the rage he never dared to let free. It’s the feel of battle in his blood and the sight of fire in the sky. And when they spin on a wingtip and he blasts the last of their nearby pursuers out of the sky, satisfaction is vicious and exhilarating.

It’s a lust for life – for freedom – and more than both of those when he glances at the fiercely avid profile of the woman piloting the Quinjet, her voice cool as she gives Stark the order to head out and go to ground. Her fingers flash across the dashboard, increasing their speed, setting them on autopilot,. Then they’re pushing up, up, up, through the cloud layer, bursting up into sunlight and blue skies and soaring free of the engagement zone below, the display before them clear of the enemy, the reports scrolling distantly in.

Steve can breathe again.

There’s a few seconds when he’s just breathing, just sitting there absorbing the moment and not reacting to anything. Then Hill glances at him, and their gazes clash like lightning, electric desire. The stain that floods her cheeks is brilliant as she unclips her harness and gets up, starting to move past him.

He’s moving before he thinks about what he’s doing, slipping out of the harness, taking her arm and turning her towards him. His mouth slants down over hers, firm and fierce, and a little harsh. After the hell he’s been through, he’s not sure he wants to be kind to this woman who was jailer and protector both.

Hill doesn’t give way beneath his mouth, doesn’t do anything more than tilt her head up. Invitation? Maybe. But his lips are moving across hers and while he can feel the tremble in her body, he can’t feel the welcome of her mouth. Steve angles his mouth deeper, and she makes a noise in her throat. It could be either encouragement or protest, but her palms are flat against his chest and pushing, so he’s going with rejection.

Steve lifts his mouth and watches her lashes rise like dark shades across her gaze. There’s a moment when he wants to go back in, her objections be damned. He hauls it back on a leash of careful control.

“That,” he says roughly, “is for the last six months.”

Her lips are swollen and her cheeks are still burning pink, but her eyes don’t drop before his gaze. “Your pound of flesh?”

“Not even close.” With his blood running hot from the drug and the battle, Steve still knows where his lines are drawn – and he’s not going to cross this one. Still, he’s not above letting her think he might – if only for a moment, before he steps back. “But I wouldn’t do that.”

“All evidence to the contrary.” Her lips press together, tight and careful restraint before she lifts her chin and steps past him into the jet’s passenger cabin. “Our first stop is six hours away. After that, you’re welcome to leave any time you like.”

Freedom. It beckons him – the possibilities of life beyond the prison he’s been living the last six months. But then what? Where is he going to go and what is he going to do? He went to sleep in the cold and woke up seventy years later in the cold, and he has no idea what his options are anymore.

And, too, Steve is reluctant to let this woman out of his sight.

A will of iron and a general’s vision? Not even close.

She and her cohorts orchestrated a major revolt in an intelligence agency; these are not the kind of people who are going to fade quietly into the background – assuming their enemies would even let them. And now that the reins and strictures are off, what will they become?

Steve finds himself intrigued. Maybe Maria Hill didn’t put a leash on him like she did the others, but Steve feels…constrained all the same. And, perhaps, he’s a little piqued.

What could he become working with them?

He supposes, if he doesn’t like it, he can always walk away later.

“I’m staying.” Steve watches Hill pause by the storage locker. A touch of devilry goads him to add, “I was told to look after you.”

Across the hold, her gaze turns to his, her eyes like the sea, shifting waves, changing currents, deep and unknown and dangerous. “Is that a threat, Captain?”

“Maybe it’s a promise.” He doesn’t drop his gaze. Even in the lighting of the hold, he can see the flush rising across her skin. And attraction may not equal action, but that spark arcs between them, sharp and stinging, and the devil prompts him yet again. “Which would you prefer?”

She holds herself very still, her shoulders rising and falling with her breaths, before she relaxes – or forces herself to relax. “Ask me again in a week,” she tells him as she opens the storage locker.

And Steve feels the flare of something infinitely more dangerous than mere attraction: a challenge thrown down between them; a waiting game.

“Believe me,” he murmurs as he turns back to the cockpit and the view of the open sky above the clouds, “I will.”

**fin**


End file.
